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Interesting. When we give feedback, we notice that the receiver isn’t good at receiving it. When we receive feedback, we notice that the giver isn’t good at giving it.
the key player is not the giver, but the receiver.
Fifty-one percent of respondents in one recent study said their performance review was unfair or inaccurate, and one in four employees dreads their performance review more than anything else in their working lives.6
It doesn’t matter how much authority or power a feedback giver has; the receivers are in control of what they do and don’t let in, how they make sense of what they’re hearing, and whether they choose to change.
Creating pull is about mastering the skills required to drive our own learning; it’s about how to recognize and manage our resistance, how to engage in feedback conversations with confidence and curiosity,
that the key variable in your growth is not your teacher or your supervisor. It’s you.
we have no choice but to get good at learning from just about anyone.
In addition to our desire to learn and improve, we long for something else that is fundamental: to be loved, accepted, and respected just as we are. And the very fact of feedback suggests that how we are is not quite okay.
Receiving feedback sits at the intersection of these two needs—our drive to learn and our longing for acceptance.
the ability to receive feedback well is not an inborn trait but a skill that can be cultivated.
Receiving feedback well doesn’t mean you always have to take the feedback.
Feedback-seeking behavior—as
seeking out negative feedback is associated with higher performance ratings.
Marriage researcher John Gottman has found that a person’s willingness and ability to accept influence and input from their spouse is a key predictor of a healthy, stable marriage.
Problems fester and the relationship stagnates. Insulation leads to isolation.
Nothing affects the learning culture of an organization more than the skill with which its executive team receives feedback.
There are only three. We call them “Truth Triggers,” “Relationship Triggers,” and “Identity Triggers.”
Truth Triggers are set off by the substance of the feedback itself—it’s somehow off, unhelpful, or simply untrue.
Relationship Triggers are tripped by the particular person who is giving us this gift of feedback.
Identity triggers are all about us. Whether the feedback is right or wrong, wise or witless, something about it has caused our identity—our sense of who we are—to come undone.
Our triggered reactions are not obstacles because they are unreasonable. Our triggers are obstacles because they keep us from engaging skillfully in the conversation. Receiving feedback well is a process of sorting and filtering—of learning how the other person sees things; of trying on ideas that at first seem a poor fit; of experimenting. And of shelving or discarding the parts of the feedback that in the end seem off or not what you need right now.
Separate Appreciation, Coaching, and Evaluation
Broadly, feedback comes in three forms: appreciation (thanks), coaching (here’s a better way to do it), and evaluation (here’s where you stand).
But in the context of receiving feedback, “understanding” what the other person means—what they see, what they’re worried about, what they’re recommending—is not so easy.
No. We’re saying that Kip doesn’t yet know what the feedback actually means.
Managing truth triggers is not about pretending there’s something to learn, or saying you think it’s right if you think it’s wrong. It’s about recognizing that it’s always more complicated than it appears and working hard to first understand.
In practice, we almost never do this. Instead, as receivers, we take up the relationship issues and let the original feedback drop. From the point of view of the person giving us the feedback, we have completely changed the topic—from their feedback to us (“be on time”) to our feedback to them (“don’t talk to me that way”).
Research conducted at Stanford points to two very different ways people tell their identity story and the effect that can have on how we experience criticism, challenge, and failure.
Why is it that when we give feedback we so often feel right, yet when we receive feedback it so often feels wrong?
Appreciation is fundamentally about relationship and human connection. At a literal level it says, “thanks.” But appreciation also conveys, “I see you,”
When people complain that they don’t get enough feedback at work, they often mean that they wonder whether anyone notices or cares how hard they’re working.
Coaching is aimed at trying to help someone learn, grow, or change.
Coaching can be sparked by two different kinds of needs. One is the need to improve your knowledge or skills in order to build capability and meet novel challenges.
the second kind of coaching feedback, the feedback giver is not responding to your need to develop certain skills. Instead, they are identifying a problem in your relationship: Something is missing, something is wrong.
Evaluation tells you where you stand.
Evaluations are always in
some respect comparisons, implicitly or explicitly, against others or against a particular set of standards.
Evaluations align expectations, clarify consequences, and inform decision making.
Before I can take in coaching or appreciation, I need to know that I’m where I need to be, that this relationship is going to last.
Three qualities are required for appreciation to count. First, it has to be specific.
Second, appreciation has to come in a form the receiver values and hears clearly.
Third, meaningful appreciation has to be authentic.
A COMPLICATION: THERE IS ALWAYS EVALUATION IN COACHING
On the receiving end, we constantly funnel the advice we’re given into either evaluation or coaching slots.
All too often, feedback that is offered as coaching is heard as evaluation.
Two things keep us on track: getting
our purposes aligned, and separating (as much as possible) evaluation from coaching and appreciation.
Ask yourself three questions: (1) What’s my purpose in giving/receiving this feedback? (2) Is it the right purpose from my point of view? (3) Is it the right purpose from the other person’s point of view?
Explicit disagreement is better than implicit misunderstanding.
I was expecting an “exceeds expectations” and receive only a “meets expectations,” then whatever coaching I receive is likely to go unheard.
